KDE Community Ships Second Release Candidate of KDE 4.3 Free Desktop, Containing Many New Features and Improvements
July 9th, 2009. The KDE Community today announced the immediate availability of KDE 4.3 RC2, a release candidate of the 3rd iteration over the KDE 4 desktop, applications and development platform.
KDE 4.3 focuses on polishing and completing the user experience by providing a modern and beautiful Free working environment.
This release candidate only contains very few changes compared to the first RC. Please make sure you report any existing issues, and in case of showstopper bugs, contact the KDE release team.
Highlights of KDE 4.3 are...
Integration of many new technologies, such as PolicyKit and Geolocation services
New Window animation effects, a more usable Run Command popup and many new and improved addons in Plasma
Many bugfixes and improvements across all applications and more integration of features coming with the KDE 4 platform
Please note that KDE 4.3 RC2 is not suitable for end users. Its sole purpose is gathering feedback and testing. Following that, we recommend those that are merely out for an upgrade but cannot live with severe instabilities to wait until KDE 4.3.0 is released in late July.
The tree mode and the default icon mode in System Settings
Peeking into directories in Plasma and, formatting options in the notes applet and the translatoid
Note that the changelog is usually incomplete, for a complete list of changes that went into KDE 4.3 RC2, you can browse the Subversion log.
To find out more about the KDE 4 desktop and applications, please refer to the KDE 4.2.0, KDE 4.1.0 and KDE 4.0.0 release notes.
Installing KDE 4.3 RC2 Binary Packages
Packagers. Some Linux/UNIX OS vendors have kindly provided binary packages of KDE 4.3 RC2 for some versions of their distribution, and in other cases community volunteers have done so. Some of these binary packages are available for free download from KDE's http://download.kde.org. Additional binary packages, as well as updates to the packages now available, may become available over the coming weeks.
Package Locations. For a current list of available binary packages of which the KDE Project has been informed, please visit the KDE 4.3 RC2 Info Page.
Compiling KDE 4.3 RC2 (a.k.a. 4.2.96)
The complete source code for KDE 4.3 RC2 may be freely downloaded. Instructions on compiling and installing KDE 4.3 RC2 are available from the KDE 4.3 RC2 Info Page.
Supporting KDE
KDE is a Free Software community that exists and grows only because of the help of many volunteers that donate their time and effort. KDE is always looking for new volunteers and contributions, whether it is help with coding, bug fixing or reporting, writing documentation, translations, promotion, money, etc. All contributions are gratefully appreciated and eagerly accepted. Please read through the Supporting KDE page for further information.
About KDE
KDE is an international technology team that creates free and open source software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE's products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms, comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds of software titles in many categories including Internet and web applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60 languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility principles in mind. KDE4's full-featured applications run natively on Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X.
KDE 4.3 RC2 Release Announcement